Be skeptical of Iran

September 24, 2013

The Tribune’s Sept. 24 editorial on new Iranian President Hasan Rouhani (“Iran’s fresh face”) offers many reasons not to trust this supposed “moderate,” including the fact that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is still the ultimate authority and Rouhani, for over three decades, was a high-ranking official in formulating Iran’s combative policy toward the West.

Rouhani once referred to his actions while he was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005 as a clever ploy to lull the West into passivity while Iran built a new nuclear plant as negotiations dragged on. So we should require this longtime Iranian operative to show he really means business by actually reversing Iranian policies that threaten regional and global peace and security, not simply by agreeing to participate in a slowly unfolding verbal minuet.

And we should certainly not, even temporarily, ameliorate the sanctions, which are the only lever that has brought Iran to the table — without Iran simultaneously suspending its enrichment-related activities and fully cooperating with international agreements and inspectors. We would certainly be fools to trade effective sanctions for ephemeral future talks.